“I picked up a couple of baked custards,” I said. “You want one?”
“Ooh, yes, please,” said Ushio.
“What do you want to drink?”
“Just tea is fine.”
“You got it,” I said, standing up.
I boiled some hot water, then steeped a mug of plain black tea for Ushio—no milk or sugar. Then I made some hot cocoa for myself, carried both our drinks over to the coffee table, and went back to the fridge to grab our dessert. I handed Ushio a spoon and sat down next to her on the couch, ready to enjoy our little late-night snack.
“Oh yeah—so guess what?” I said. “I got a call from Hoshihara earlier. Sounds like they’re trying to plan some sort of class reunion for when everybody’s back home for the week of Obon. She said we’re both invited. Think you’d wanna go?”
“Yeah, of course,” said Ushio. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”
“She asked me to get back to her with your answer, but maybe you should be the one to let her know. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”
“True, we haven’t had that many opportunities to talk lately… Maybe I’ll give her a call tomorrow.”
Ushio took a sip of her tea. Her eyes looked awfully tired.
If I remembered right, she didn’t have class tomorrow until her third-hour seminar in the afternoon. Although we were going to different universities, our schools thankfully used the same lecture timetable.
“So how are things at work these days?” I asked. “Seems like they’ve been running you ragged lately.”
“I mean, it’s been pretty hectic, yeah,” said Ushio. “Feels like we’ve been getting even more customers than usual—and we already had a lot. But I still enjoy it, though. Just meeting all sorts of different people, slowly getting to know them… It’s kinda nice to play the role of confidante, y’know? Being the one they share their secrets with and all.”
“Oh yeah? What kinds of secrets are we talking?”
“I can’t just tell you, silly… But I will say this: You’d be surprised how many people there are out there who are dealing with the same sorts of struggles I used to.”
Ushio took a bite of her baked custard.
“I don’t even pry or ask questions or anything,” she went on. “They just kind of slip those details in completely unprompted. I can understand, though. It’s probably a lot easier to share those kinds of secrets with a random bartender than a friend or family member, right? Like, there’s not a whole lot of risk there. Plus, they might not even have anyone else in their lives who’d understand what they’re going through.”
“Or maybe they can tell you’re a good person who won’t judge them,” I said. “And you make them feel safe enough to be comfortable sharing those things.”
“That’d be really nice, yeah…”
Ushio smiled shyly, then scooped out the rest of her baked custard. Once she was finished eating, she set the empty container down on the coffee table and took another sip of her Earl Grey. Cupping the mug in her lap, she let her gaze sink down to the opaque, reddish-brown surface of the lukewarm liquid.
“I think most of all, they just want someone to know who they really are,” she said. “At the same time, they feel terrified of being known. And I know that probably sounds contradictory…but I can really relate to that feeling. Like, it pains me so much to know exactly what they’re going through that I could cry. And yet, they’re not even looking for sympathy. All they really want is someone they can talk to about it. Someone who will hear them out and try their best to understand what they’re going through. So I just listen—making sure to never interject with my own opinion, or offer advice they didn’t ask for, or say anything at all that might downplay their feelings or suggest that they’re not completely valid. And only then, when they’ve had the chance to say everything they want to say, do I even think about opening my mouth and offering them what little encouragement and support I can give. To let them know that I understand, and that they’ve at least got one person in their corner who’s rooting for them.”
I nodded, my full attention on her.
“And whenever they smile back at me after that—like they feel just a little bit better now, having talked to me about it—I can’t even tell you how happy that makes me. It’s like, wow… Maybe all that pain and suffering I endured for so long was worth it, you know? Not that anyone should ever have to go through what I did, obviously. I don’t believe in ‘building character through adversity’ or whatever. But the thought that my experience can be a source of strength or reassurance for someone else… I don’t even know how to describe it. It just makes my heart feel so full, and warm, and…and I just…”
Tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked, offering her a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
“Thanks… Yeah, no, I’m fine. Just feeling a little emotional, that’s all. I’m not tired or stressed out or anything like that, don’t worry.”
Ushio set her mug down and dabbed her eyes with the tissue, her gray irises glistening like gemstones behind her tears. There was no hint of sadness in them; it seemed I could take her assurance that nothing was wrong at face value.
“Oh yeah! Speaking of bartending!” she said, her tone perking right up as though she was trying to lift the mood. “I’ve actually been working on my own original cocktail recipe lately. I’m still trying to nail down the ratio, but I’ve already got a name in mind and everything. And it’s nonalcoholic too, so even you can try it sometime, Sakuma.”
“Hey, cool,” I said. “I’ll look forward to that. What’s it called?”
“A Mimosa Confession.”
I repeated the words in my head. “Yeah, that’s got a pretty nice ring to it.”
“I know, right?” said Ushio. “Though I’m kind of thinking about changing it, actually, just because there’s already a kind of cocktail called a mimosa.”
“What?! But it’s such a good name, though…”
Too bad—though it sounded like Ushio wasn’t all that attached. She proceeded to list off several other names she’d been considering, but none of them struck me as quite so memorable as the first one. Before we knew it, it was almost two o’clock in the morning, so we cleaned up after our dessert and brushed our teeth. I was feeling extremely tired all of a sudden; I probably shouldn’t have stayed up so late.
“All right,” I said. “Ready to go to bed?”
“Uh-huh,” replied Ushio, rubbing her eyes.
“…You wanna sleep in my room tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. C’mon.”
Guiding Ushio by the hand, I opened the door to my bedroom and led her inside. After giving her a chance to lie down, I killed the lights and joined her on the bed. Once we were lying face-to-face, I wrapped my arms around her slender frame, and she slid hers around my torso. As I gently closed my eyes, I could smell the sweet fragrance of her leave-in hair treatment every time I breathed in, steady and sure.
No longer did I feel any discomfort at the thought of being intimate with her—that initial reluctance had gone away with time. Never in my life would I have guessed that simply falling asleep in someone’s arms could make me feel as whole as I did right now. For it was only in these waning moments of wakefulness, as my consciousness floated further adrift into a stardust sea of dreams, that I’d ever known true contentment.
There was no place in time I’d rather be.